The spread of the Covid-19 virus has led to a lockdown of most of the world. Restriction of movements and stay at home orders have been declared by governments across the world to slow down the rate of the spread of the virus.
As a result of being stuck at home, people have found alternate means of keeping themselves entertained. The overarching importance of social media has come to fore with people going “online” to stay connected, informed and entertained.
Social media is no longer a “necessary evil”, it is now an essential. The real world is online now. The concept of going outside to experience the world is no longer as important as it has always seemed.
Turns out people can still have a full life from within their homes. While almost everyone is pining to “go outside”, and there has been a better appreciation of the freedom of movement, people are also realizing that they can survive actually sitting at home.
An interesting aspect of the Covid-19 lockdown is that it is global. Almost everyone all over the world is at home, now more than ever, there is a stronger connection among strangers online. As people turn to social media to cure them of their boredom, boundaries are getting shrunken.
Instagram has seen a lot of activity. People have devised interesting ways to entertain themselves and to keep their audiences entertained. There have been Instagram Live “battle” sessions between music producers, playing their biggest records. These sessions saw hundreds of thousands of views. It gives the feeling that the whole world is online.
One of the people using the Instagram Live feature to connect with and entertain people is London based Ugandan model, Eva Apio.
Eva is the daughter of retired supermodel Eva Mbabazi. Eva Mbabazi is one of the most successful models in Uganda. She is a former Miss Tourism Uganda and contested in the Miss Uganda pageant of 1994.
Young Eva started modeling when she was 13. Though Eva is based in London, she is currently signed to Storm Models in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles.
Eva has been hosting Instagram Live sessions where she accepts requests from strangers, who then join her Live and they banter.
On one of those occasions, Eva accepted a request from Father DMW and the unlikely duo have provided unexpectedly entertaining content since then.
FatherDMW, whose real name is Mohammed, is a Borno state native. Due to the rise of Boko Haram insurgency in his state, Father had to escape to Lagos, disguised as a woman donning a hijab to avoid detection and protect himself. According to him if you are a man, you are given a gun and asked to shoot. Father took to becoming a commercial motorcyclist in Lagos to make ends meet, making rounds in Lekki.
Father says in a 2019 interview, that he was often around Davido’s house because a friend of his lived there. He finally got his opportunity to speak with Davido, and his life more or less changed. Davido connected him to Broda Shaggi, with whom he started making skits and sharpened his comedic skills.
Eva and Father’s IG Live sessions are nothing short of hilarious with Father’s over the top claims and declarations of love for Eva and Eva’s coy evasions.
The pair now alternate who hosts these Live shows per night. They don’t seem to have a particular content structure, they just banter and go with the flow of the conversation, with Father making a lot of hardly believable and exaggerated claims – of meeting global artistes, and traveling round the world, and Eva trying to catch him in a lie or teaching him how to properly pronounce words. “Google” and “Water” and “Spaghetti” for example.
In one of these sessions, Father claimed to be friends with French Montana, ‘French Montana, he’s Muslim, we prayed together in Mecca. He’s my big friend.’ Sounding so believable when he makes these statements, it’s difficult to doubt that they are true.
They have a couple of cute moments, where they truly bond and it looks like there might be an actual friendship budding between the two.
The duo shared a moment when they found out they were both fans of Naira Marley. Eva sang Naira Marley’s “Japa”, and Father responded, ‘I’m the one produced the song’, to which Eva replied, ‘I’m just going to take the shot cause you’re lying’
After singing Rihanna’s “Work” once, Father made another claim,‘They shot the video in Jamaica. I was in Jamaica with Popcaan.’
In one of their sessions, trying to catch him in a lie, Eva asks him, ‘What’s that song you wrote for Roddy Ricch?’ To which Father replies by miming Roddy Rich’s The Box.
The absurdities of the are so entertaining that they have the likes of Don Jazzy, Ebuka, Adekunle Gold, Toolz, Ik Ogbonna and other celebrities tuning in to watch them.
While Father and Eva have been able to successfully gather thousands of views, for how long will they be able to keep their audience’s attention? We’ll see. Till then, we’ll be watching and laughing.